From Valley Broad and Fen
by Realmer06
Summary: Of them all, she'd loved him best. But life is not a fairy tale, and love isn't always enough. Warning: character death


Written for rachelleneveu's prompt on the interhouse_fest.

Writing anything about the Founders in an undertaking marked with difficulties. To that end, I have not tried to set this in any firm time period, nor have I attempted to alter the language of the characters beyond the obvious removal of modern idioms and cultural references. I want this to stand as a fairy tale of sorts, existing almost out of time. I hope the attempt works. This is quite the significant style departure for me, so please be kind! I had a lot of fun imagining these legends into people with flaws and virtues. Thanks to my husband, Chase, who served double duty as beta for this and was also instrumental in helping me develop the look and feel of early magic.

This story is for Drew. Because without his interest in my imaginings of the Founders some twelve-odd years ago, this would have died some eleven-odd years ago. But knowing that he wanted, someday to read this, helped me keep _Like Pillars Four_ alive. I hope it has been worth the wait.

* * *

Of them all, she'd loved him best.

oOo

She was eleven, and he was thirteen, when the Brothers who weren't really Brothers brought him and two others to the commune where she lived.

She was eleven, and hadn't spent much time with other children. The village at the base of Hogwart Hill was full of them, but Helga hadn't been allowed to mingle, for fear the commune's secret would leak out. For fear Helga's own secret would leak out. She had grown up with the Brothers and Sisters, tending gardens and making potions and learning Latin and Runes and other things not normally taught to girls. And when her magic had first blazed out of her, the Brothers said it was time.

She was eleven, and he was thirteen when he came with a boy and a girl, young mages all, gathered to be taught the magic that was their birthright. She was the youngest of them, the smallest, the quietest, and the only one without a magical name of note, for she had lived, orphaned, at the commune all her life, her mother dying in childbirth, her father never known. Her mother had had not a touch of magic about her, but Helga did, so her father had, whoever he might be.

She was eleven, and he was thirteen, and the others were twelve and fourteen, wild and exuberant and curious and overwhelming. When the giant bear of a redheaded boy looked at her and boomed, "You're being taught alongside us? You're not more than seven!" and she thought she might faint, he was the one who said, "Hush, Godric," and smiled at her, a warm, easy smile she couldn't help but return.

He was kind and good-hearted and open and friendly. His warm dark eyes were always twinkling and a smile was never far from his face. He was quiet and calm, so unlike his two friends (who became her friends, too, good ones, close ones, closer than family, but they did tend to leave her breathless, in a way that he never did). He loved the gardens as much as she did, and was as adept at coaxing a bud from a temperamental rose bush as he was at coaxing Helga out of her shell.

She was eleven, and he was thirteen, and Salazar Slytherin was the best friend Helga Hufflepuff had ever had.

oOo

She was twelve, and he was fourteen, when she thought the heat of her secret might burn her from the inside out.

She was twelve, and the truth was, she wasn't kept away from the children in the village at the base of the hill because she was a witch. She was kept away because they were children, and children run and chase and climb and shout until their faces are red and their breath comes in pants, and Helga could do none of those things. She was kept away because she _longed_ to run and chase and climb and join their games and yell with energy and live her life with exuberance, but she couldn't because her traitorous heart, blood, lungs weren't strong enough. She had come too early, the Sisters said, and these weaknesses were the price. "You have magic!" she'd cried at them once. "Why can't you fix it?" And they had answered, solemnly, "We have magic. That's why you're alive."

She was twelve, and he was fourteen, and he stayed behind with her while Godric and Rowena ran and chased and climbed with the children in the village after their lessons were done for the day, and she felt guilty for his presence, even while she didn't want to lose it. They thought she was afraid, of heights, of noise, of people, of pain, and she let them because she hated it less than the truth (though she still hated it). So she was determined to make good use of the time he spent with her, and she taught him to cook and to brew salves (skills that he, as the second son of a rich family, had never needed to know), and she asked him to teach her the higher mathematics he'd learned with a tutor.

But she knew she saw his eyes straying past her while they cooked or studied or brewed or weeded. She knew he was looking toward the village, toward Godric and Ro and the children who could play in their free time. And she urged him often to go, to join them, to run down to the base of the hill. Always he asked, "Are you sure?" Always he asked, "Do you want to come?" Always she told him Yes and No and watched him retreat when he chose to go (and hid her smiles when he shook his head and said "Children's games. I prefer to be here.")

She wanted so badly to tell him the truth. That she wasn't afraid of heights or noise or people or getting hurt. That she dreamed of climbing trees and winning races and reaching the very, very top of Hogwart Hill, but she couldn't because her body, traitor that it was, wouldn't let her. The Brothers and Sisters wouldn't let her. She wanted to tell him, but she couldn't stomach the pity in his eyes when he learned the extent of her frailty. She couldn't stand to see the way he'd look at her when he learned that walking the length of the commune stole her breath from her lungs, that climbing the stairs to Brother Accalon's workroom made her heart pound in her chest and her blood pulse in her couldn't bear for him to know that if she followed him to the village, if she ran after him as she so dearly longed to do, her heart could burst and she would die.

She was twelve, and he was fourteen, and she weighed her life without the secret she carried around like a leaden weight, and found it good. She had friends, and she loved them. She was learning magic, and she was good at it. She felt a part of a family, with Ro and Godric and Salazar by her side. She only wished she didn't feel so separate from them. She only wished she had no reason to hold herself back, to hold herself apart.

She was twelve, and he was fourteen, and she was lying to them all every day and the guilt was tearing her apart, but what other choice did she have?

oOo

She was fourteen, and he was sixteen, when magic had to save her life for the third time.

She was fourteen, and magic had saved her when she was born, taken too early from her mother's dying body, and magic had saved her again when she was five years old and had taken it into her head to climb to the top of Hogwart Hill. Brother Accalon had found her, blue in the face and gasping for breath, and had worked a great magic to keep her alive. She hadn't known before that, that her blood was weak, that she couldn't do what other children did. But the Brothers and Sisters had explained it to her, carefully and clearly, and imposed the restrictions that now defined her life. Standing on top of Hogwart Hill had become the most desperate, impossible dream of her life.

She was fourteen, and he was sixteen, and Godric and Ro were seventeen and fifteen when they turned their sights toward Hogwart Hill. Godric always sought adventure, and Ro could not bear to leave anything to the unknown, and three years after their arrival at the commune, the massive hill towering up above them was all of the surrounding area that remained unexplored, but for the very heart of the forest that ringed the lake.

Ro said, "We have finished our lessons, and the day is fine. What say we climb to the peak of Hogwart Hill and see the world as the eagles see it?" And Helga's fingers went cold. Godric said, "Yes, and Helga can lead us! For she grew up on that hill, I'll bet, and knows the surest way to the top!" And Helga's heart began to pound. Then he said, with his warm eyes and gentle smiles, "That sounds perfect. No noise, no fuss. Just us and the day and the mountain. Won't you join us, Helga?"And her blood began to roar in her ears, because she could defy Ro and deny Godric, but she couldn't refuse him.

She tried to tell them she had never been to the top (they said they could find the way together), that the Brothers might not approve (they said they had permission to explore), that it was unknown and might be dangerous (that only encouraged them). Then he took her hand and told her, "You needn't be afraid. You'll be with us. We'll keep you safe," and she wondered for a moment the worst that could happen if she said yes and went with them. If she said no and confessed the truth. If she said no and continued to lie.

She said "I can't," wishing she could give any other answer, because she saw the impatience from Ro and the disapproval from Godric and, worst of all, the disappointment from him. Three voices rose then, clamoring and chiming over one another, trying to cajole her, to guilt her, to convince her, and it was too much, and she yanked her hand away, tears in her eyes, and said, "You don't understand. I _can't_!" in a voice so filled with anguish that it stunned them into silence. But in the silence, she could hear the questions that would come, and so she fled, turning and running away from them and her secret as hard and as fast as her legs would carry her.

She made it to the edge of the trees outside the commune before she collapsed. His was the first stern face she saw when she woke ten days later, brought back from the brink of death by a great magic that simply _would not_ , she was assured by more stern faces later, be able to save her a fourth time. But those harsh voices would come later. At the first, there was only his, demanding, "How could you not _tell_ us?" and "Do you have any idea what might have happened to you? If I hadn't followed you to make sure you were okay? If I hadn't found you?" and, in a ragged whisper that finally convinced her to open her eyes against the tears, "Do you know what would have happened to me if I'd lost you?"

She was fourteen, and he was sixteen, when she confessed everything to him, when she made the most desperate apologies of her life, when she begged him, and Ro and Godric, to forgive her. Their forgiveness was immediate and absolute and brought new tears to her eyes. And there was no pity, no disappointment, no impatience. Only a resolute determination to help her and a promise that they would get her to the top of Hogwart Hill if it was the last thing they did. "If I have to carry you there myself," he told her, his words a solemn vow, his hand warm and sure in hers, and she wondered how she had come to have such friends.

She was fourteen, and he was sixteen, and it was strange, she thought, that the solid love of friendship she'd held for Salazar from the first should have changed now, after this, to something fluttery and thrumming, something that left her breathless in a completely unfamiliar way.

oOo

She was seventeen, and he was nineteen, when she dared to dream of the future.

She was seventeen, and the future had always been a limited idea for her. Even ignoring the reality she didn't let herself dwell on (that even in the best of circumstances, her future likely would not contain many years), what was there for her to do with her life? She would never be strong enough for travel, there was very little work she could handle, and much as she loved Ro and Godric and Salazar, she could never ask them to stay in this sleepy commune with her forever. They would go out into the world, great mages all, and she would stay here, keeping quiet, keeping calm, taking over the apothecary for Brother Accalon for as many years as she had left.

She was seventeen, and he was nineteen, and she voiced this frustration one day when a head cold was playing havoc with her lungs and Brother Accalon had ordered her to remain by the fire and she was feeling despondent. She did not say all of it - she left out the fear that they would leave her behind - but she said enough of it. He was seated beside her, reading to her while Godric and Ro worked on some magic in the corner, but when she said this, he put the book aside. He picked up her hands with a frown and said, "Look at me, Helga." She did, her heart hammering so hard at his touch that she was sure he must feel it through the thin skin of her wrists. "If you want to see the world, I will take you to see the world," he told her earnestly.

"How can I see the world," she mumbled, "if I can't even climb a hill?"

And he told her, "We swore we would get you to the top of that hill, and we shall. And after that, we will get you wherever you wish to go. I swear it on my life." And then he leaned in close to her and said, for her ears alone, "You shall not be abandoned, dear heart. I hope I speak for Godric and Ro when I say that we would never leave you alone, but I know I speak for myself when I say that I will never walk away from you. I will never choose a life that does not have you in it." Her blush became a brilliant crimson at that.

She was seventeen, and he was nineteen, and one morning, Ro and Godric and Salazar greeted her when she woke with barely concealed grins and barely grasped patience as she dressed and ate her breakfast. The second her plate was clear, it was whisked away and she was wrapped up in a warm shawl and hurried out the door. She asked repeatedly, "What is going on?" and received no answer (though they were bursting at the seams to tell her), for it was a great secret, what they had done for her.

She was seventeen, and he was nineteen, and over the past three years, there had been times when they had disappeared, without her, when their studies were done for the day. She had seen this and never asked where they went or what they did, because she was determined to not care, to not be jealous, to not begrudge them adventures simply because she could not share in them. But on this day, she was brought to a stone post, carved with runes and magical inscriptions, set into the ground just past the place where she went weekly to gather herbs for Brother Accalon. On this day, she was invited to step inside a ring of runes set in stone on the ground, to place her hands upon the inscribed post, to experience the great magic her friends had created for her. A blink of an eye, a tug near her spine, and then, there she was, in a new ring, her hand on a new post - or were they the same? - very near the very top of Hogwart Hill.

She was seventeen, and he was nineteen, when her breath was snatched away not by exertion or illness or weakness but by the view of the whole world spread out below her. By the wind catching her hair and skirts. By the sheer incredibility of where she was and how she had come to be there. And her surprises were not over. With astonishing gentleness, Godric lifted her into his arms and carried her the remaining twenty yards or so to the peak of Hogwart Hill while Ro and Salazar hiked beside them. Five paces from the top, he set her on the ground again, so she could take the final steps with them.

Standing on the peak of Hogwart Hill stole the breath from her lungs and the words from her throat. She could only stand, blinking back the happiest tears of her life while Ro Conjured a picnic and Godric grinned wide enough to light up the word and Salazar slipped his hand into hers and looked at her with such warmth she thought she might explode. Brought there by the dedication and hard work and selflessness of her three friends, she could only marvel in the moment, alive with wonder and magic and potential.

She asked them as they ate how they had done it, how they had built this new, great magic. They laughed and grinned and told her gleefully how it had come to be, the struggles they had faced, the ways their plans had gone wrong before they'd figured out the magic. Godric said, "The Brothers said it couldn't be done, but Ro knew there had to be a way." Ro said, "We would have figured it out in half the time if we'd asked you." Salazar said, "But we wanted so badly for it to be a gift for you, dearest." And she said that the magic was a gift for far more than just her. "Think what magic like this could mean for all wizards!"

Godric said, "With some adjustments, I think we can move the post anywhere, not just between circles." Ro said, "With some adjustments, I think we can attach the spell to a smaller object, one that can be carried with you." Salazar said, "With some adjustments, I think we can attach the spell to a person without needing an object at all." And they all four sat and listened and discussed and dreamed of possibility. Up on the hill, separated from the world, they were surrounded by nothing but pure potential, and they all felt it. For if Helga Hufflepuff could stand on the top of Hogwart Hill, then there was nothing that could not be achieved.

She was seventeen, and he was nineteen, and the others were eighteen and twenty, when she said, "Let's build a school. Let's put it here. Let's bring all the young witches and wizards we can find to this place and teach them as we have been taught. Let's create a lasting legacy, a community that can grow beyond the confines of the commune. Let's build a school. If we work together, I _know_ we can do it. I know we can."

Godric said, "Teachers? Us?" Ro said, " _All_ the young magicians we can find?" And they looked at her, doubt and uncertainty in their eyes. But Salazar took her hands and said, "That's the best idea I've ever heard. Let's do it." And the others were infected with their certainty, and so the plan was born.

She was seventeen, and he was nineteen, and on the way home, after the post had taken them back to the base of the hill, Helga found herself a bit unsteady. She stumbled, and he was there, at once, to catch her, to steady her, to hold her carefully as he had so often before. But on that day, he did not let go. He held her and their eyes locked, and he did not let go. Godric and Ro took one look back at them and discreetly hurried their steps, giving the moment the privacy it deserved.

Breathless, she said, "Thank you for today."

And he said, "Why do you thank me in particular?"

And she said, "Because I feel today has much to do with you in particular."

And he said, "Not at all. They were as relentless in pursuing today's goal as I."

And she said, "But the initial idea, I think, was yours."

And he ducked his head (bringing it closer to hers) and smiled and could not deny it. "It's all in how you propose it," he admitted. "Put it to Ro as a puzzle to solve, and she'll pursue it to the ends of the earth. Tell Godric it's a wrong that must be righted, and he will not stop until it is vanquished."

And she said, "And you? What made you relentless?"

And he looked at her with the whole world in his eyes and said, "Have I truly not made that clear? Dear one. Dearest one." He gently cupped her face, tracing his thumb along the line of her cheek. "If you tell me a thing will make you happy, I would go to the ends of the earth to provide it. If you tell me it is the dearest desire of your heart, I will not rest until I have seen you achieve it."

And she said, with a voice choked with wonder and longing, "Why should this be so?"

And he said, "Because I have loved you with all of my heart as long as I have known you. And I think we have danced around those words enough."

She was seventeen, and he was nineteen, and he kissed her amidst the heather and broom and hogwart and gorse while their friends stood by and pretended not to see (but couldn't hide their grins or laughter or pleasure for long), and she knew with certainty that there was magic in the world and that anything was possible.

oOo

She was twenty, and he was twenty-two, when all their dreams of the future could be called more reality than dream.

She was twenty, and he was twenty-two, and Hogwart Hill was unrecognizable from the days of their childhood. No longer home to a sleepy little commune, now the hill and the village and the commune bustled with activity and energy and life. And up on the crest, a magnificent stone castle stood half constructed.

They had spoken long and hard about how large a school to build. For while at the beginning, they knew they would not have more than twelve or fifteen students at most, they dared to dream of their school lasting twenty, fifty, a hundred or more years into the future. So though it meant more work, more supplies, more time spent developing more great magics, Ro and Salazar and Godric and Helga had planned and designed a castle that could grow to meet the needs of the future, whatever they may be.

She was twenty, and he was twenty-two, and the others were twenty-one and twenty-three, and they had spent three long years planning and dreaming and building, and still it was not done. But the young wizards and witches who had heard of the school being built in the north had come even though the castle was not finished. And because they had come to be taught, the four could not turn any away.

And so they taught. In the mornings, their scant handfuls of young learners cycled through four series of lessons - protection and defense magic with Godric, runes and great magic construction with Rowena, simpler magic and potions with Salazar, and herbery and history and languages with Helga. And in the afternoons, Godric took the strongest and most fearless to either aid with physical construction or lay protective enchantments against the dangers of the surrounding forest. Ro took those able to keep up with her designs to continue laying the groundwork enchantments on the castle. Salazar took the most cunning and creative thinkers and went over the groundplans with them, looking for weaknesses to fix and new solutions to implement. And Helga took the rest and made sure that at the end of the day, everyone had food to eat and salves to put on burns and bruises and potions to help keep their strength up for the next day.

She was twenty, and he was twenty-two, and every so often, he would depart for weeks at a time to travel the country and seek out magical students and tell them about Hogwarts Academy of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Often he returned from these trips with new students in tow and promises of more to come. Always he returned with news from the outside magical world. And once, he returned with quite the extraordinary tale.

He had found, he said, two magical children who had been born to families with no magic at all. And they were not orphaned wizards taken in by Muggles, nor were they born to families with magic simply a generation removed. "They were born to families who have never seen magic before, and yet there is no mistake - both boys _are_ wizards."

Godric declared it impossible, but Ro looked thoughtful and eventually said that if two magical parents could produce a non-magical child, why couldn't the reverse be true? Helga insisted that regardless of how they came to be, both children should be brought to Hogwarts to study magic.

She was twenty, and he was twenty-two, and the love between them had only grown in the past three years. Though she could hardly believe that out of all the women in the world, he had chosen to love (and continue to love) her, she showed her love for him every chance she had. When he was at the commune, they made time to walk together every day, stealing kisses when no one was looking, holding hands and dreaming of the future together. When he was away, he took a crate of the commune's pigeons with him and wrote her the most beautiful letters. She and Ro were working together to breed a smarter species of pigeon ("Or other bird, honestly," Ro had said in exasperation more than once. "Pigeons might be incurably stupid.") that would be able to find him wherever he went, but until then, she saved all her letters for his return.

She was twenty, and he was twenty-two, and she thought life could not improve any further, could not become better than it currently was. And then he asked her to be his wife.

It was the night before the castle was to open officially. There was to be a feast at the commune with all the Brothers and Sisters, with the four who were now called the Founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, along with their current fourteen students. But before the feast began, he asked her to walk with him in the gardens.

His words, so full of love and hope, brought tears to her eyes, but though she wanted to say yes more than anything, something held her back. "What is it, dear one?" he asked when he saw her hesitation.

So she told him. Told him that she could never bear him children. Told him that she didn't even know if she could be with him in the way of a wife to a husband. Told him that she knew his family, wealthy and concerned with name and status, would never approve of her as his wife. She hated to refuse him, hated to hurt him, but bizarrely, before she had finished speaking, he was smiling.

"Dearest one," he said, taking her hands in his, "I will say to you what I said to my family not a week past. I will live where I have love. I will live where I have joy. I will live where my heart is, and my heart, my sweet, my love, lies with you and always shall. My brother has three sons to carry on the Slytherin name. If I never sire a child, it will be no great loss to the world. I am sorry for your sake that you can never bear a child, for you would be a wonderful mother, and that loss seems so unfair, but as for the rest of it, I care not. I care not that we will never have a child. I care not that we will never share a marital bed. I care not that my family, ignorant as they are, cannot see beyond your name to find anything to approve. I am here to offer myself to you, to stand before God and our family in there and claim that I am yours, body, mind, and soul, and always shall be. Marry me, Helga. Please, say you will."

She was twenty and he was twenty-two, and with such a declaration laid before her, how could she say anything other than yes?

oOo

They were so young. And life was so perfect. And it should have been the perfect beginning to a beautiful and long love story.

It should have been. But the world is hard and often cruel and life is not a fairy tale. Once the hammer falls, the blow cannot be undealt.

oOo

The blow came five years later when, Salvator Slytherin, Salazar's older brother, was killed, and his three sons with him. They were killed by a Muggle mob, fearing magic, having only the name Slytherin to go on, the name given by a man who had come with a wand and a grimoire and a devil tongue to steal their children away.

When word of the massacre came to the school, Helga alone saw her husband break down in grief and guilt and shame. She alone saw the extent of his self-torture over what he had brought upon his brother and nephews. She held him while his body was racked with sobs, kissed his brow, and mourned with him.

And when his family summoned him home, she saw the panic in his eyes and knew what it meant. She was physically weak, but her mind was strong and sharp, and she knew what the summons meant. She knew what his panic meant. And she decided then and there that she would not allow him to make promises he could not keep. So when he said, haltingly, "Helga -" she stopped him.

"Go be with your family," she told him, and was proud that her voice did not break.

Desperately, he grasped at her hands, and when he spoke, his look was wild, his voice ragged. "You will always be my only love," he vowed. "Always." And she nodded and told him she loved him and sent him on his way and did not cry. Not until she was back in their quarters in the castle. Not until she was alone. And even then, she wept as she had long ago learned to do, a quiet weeping that would not put her in danger. But it should not be assumed that her grief was any less for being quiet, for as she sat alone in their room, she knew the truth - when she saw him again, he would no longer be her husband.

When news of Salazar Slytherin's marriage to his brother's wife reached the castle, after the initial shock and disbelief and incredulity, Godric was appalled and Rowena was incensed, but Helga took the news with only a brief closing of her eyes as she forced tears away. She had already mourned this loss. She need not mourn it again.

"You don't seem surprised," Rowena accused when they and Godric were alone.

"I'm not," she said calmly. "I saw the writing on the wall when he left, Rowena. I saw the letter his mother wrote him. It will not have been his choice, but it will have been inevitable for all that."

"Not his _choice_?" she raged. "It is not about _choice_ , he is married to _you_!"

"Our marriage was never consummated," Helga said wearily. "And I cannot bear children. In the eyes of the law and his family, I am no fit wife, and our marriage was never a true marriage. It will have been easily annulled."

"He should have fought for you!" she said then.

"I imagine he did," was her response, though the words brought tears to her eyes. "But he is the sole heir now, and of all the people in this room, Rowena, you more than any other should be sympathetic toward being forced into marriage for the continuance of a name."

Protectively, almost guilty, Rowena's hand flew to the swollen roundness of her stomach. She looked briefly away, but when she met Helga's eyes again, there was a fire in them. "He is a man in a man's world," she said in a cold voice. "He should have fought harder."

"Men have obligations, too, Rowena," Godric rumbled, an edge in his voice. Rowena just snorted in derision.

"Of course you take his side," she sneered, and swept out. Helga closed her eyes and prayed for patience. She had not the strength nor inclination to cool another spat between Godric and Rowena, spats that had grown ever more frequent since Salazar's departure and Rowena's arranged marriage.

"I will say," Godric spoke up, interrupting her thoughts, "he should have had the courage and decency to tell you himself, not let you find out like this. What was he thinking? Didn't he know what news like this could do to you?"

And her patience was gone. "I am not a child in need of your protection, Godric," she snapped. "I am not so weak that I will die of something written in a letter, and do not presume to know our business. As it happens, he did tell me of this himself." Not in words, no, but when she had locked eyes with him that day, she knew. They both knew. But her words now only darkened Godric's eyes.

"Then he's a coward twice over, and he should pay for it," he said, before he, too, left the room.

And so, the first cracks appeared. And perhaps, under different circumstances, the damage could have been repaired. But what was done was done.

And when Salazar returned a year after his departure, the cracks deepened. For Salazar Slytherin was a changed man, older, leaner, harder. He no longer smiled, not with his eyes or his mouth, and any trace of warmth he had had before had disappeared. All she had first loved about him, his happiness, his openness, his gentleness, his easy smile and warm eyes, all of that was gone, leaving a stranger in its place.

Though he ate meals with them in the Great Hall, the fact that he was holding himself apart from them was noticeable. He taught his classes and spoke to his students, but exchanged only brief words with Godric and Rowena and would not so much as look at Helga. His first night back, he sent a student to her quarters to collect his things. He would now be staying near the Slytherin students on the other side of the castle. She had known it would be so, but the fact that he had sent someone instead of coming himself still stung. Keeping apart from Godric and Rowena she could understand - they were making their anger with him clear - but she had hoped he would not feel the need to avoid her.  
The cracks deepened further when, at their first staff meeting after Salazar's return, he made the suggestion that they reconsider admitting Muggleborn students to the school. Though his concerns about the safety of their students and their families was legitimate and understandable, given what he had gone through, his suggestion was extreme, and Godric and Rowena were already primed for anger against him. The meeting fell apart entirely soon after it began, leaving Helga alone in a room that the others had all stormed out of. Despite attempting to act as peacemaker, despite being the only person willing to listen to his argument, Salazar had not once looked at her.

A son was born to Salazar some six months after his return to the school. When Helga tried to offer her congratulations, he cut her off with a harsh and pained, "Don't. Please." It was the closest they had come to conversation in all the time he had been back.

Over the next three years, Helga watched, helpless, as the strain and the distance between the four grew and grew. Salazar had begun to refuse accepting Muggleborn students into his house, prompting Godric to sneer the word _bigot_ at him whenever the chance arose and Rowena to scoff with disdain and remove herself yet further from the pettiness of the men in the school. Helga alone knew the real reason for his refusal, for he had first made the request of her. "I won't treat them fairly," he'd told her in a voice lined with pain. "I will always imagine that their families were the ones who-" He hadn't finished. He hadn't needed to. She had hoped the confession might bring them closer to the friendship they had once shared, even if the love could no longer be present, but after that conversation, he had grown more distant with her than ever before.

She was twenty-nine, and Hogwarts boasted forty-four students after being open almost ten years, and it should have been a triumph, all they had achieved, all they were achieving, but burdened by the weight of pettiness and sniping and constant tension and escalating hatred, Helga could not feel triumphant. She could feel little beyond despair. Despair, and shame, and guilt, because this had been her dream. Hogwarts had been her dream, so was it not her fault when the dream turned to nightmare?

The more time that passed, the more the chasms between the four widened, and the less good Helga's attempts at making peace did. For what had started as rifts between Salazar and the others had grown into rifts between all of them. Not even Helga was immune, for Rowena thought her foolish for forgiving Salazar and striving to make peace, and Godric thought her weak for trying to see things from all sides instead of standing up for one idea and one cause. Straining to bridge those gaps was sapping every bit of strength Helga possessed.

At night, she lay collapsed in her bed too exhausted to cry and wished with her whole heart that she had never dreamed of this school, never spoken that desire aloud on the top of Hogwart Hill.

When the final blow came, devastating as it was, it was almost a relief.

oOo

She was twenty-nine, and he was thirty-one, when the foundation upon which their school had been built finally broke and crumbled into dust too fine to be put back together.

She was twenty-nine, and she had been holding an old and broken dream, holding an entire school together with her fingernails and the skin of her teeth and sheer stubborn refusal to let go. She had watched as the disputes and tensions between the Founders seeped into their students, watched as Gryffindors bold with Godric's pompous tyranny bullied the other students in the school, as Slytherins misunderstanding the wishes and hesitations of Salazar sneered at Muggleborn students and refused to associate with those of "impure" blood, as Ravenclaws filled with the disdain of Rowena held themselves aloof and cold and distant and above the pettiness of those less intelligent than they. And she watched as Hufflepuffs trying so hard to keep an impossible peace let themselves be bullied and sneered at and beaten down. And she didn't know how much more she could take, how much more of herself she could give over to a school falling down and apart around her.

She was twenty-nine, and he was thirty-one, and finally, they pushed him too far. She did not see the impetus; she had been tending an injured student and had missed the start of the meeting, and so the start of the argument. She entered the office of the Founders to find Salazar and Godric red-faced and furious, screaming at one another. She entered in time to hear, " _Enough_! For three years, I have borne this, this tyrannical rule of yours at a school that was supposed to be managed through equality. For three years, I have been shut out of decisions, been mocked and sneered at in the halls, been disrespected by you and your students, and I have borne it for the sake and safety of those who walk these halls, but enough is enough, Godric, and this time you go too far!"

The words made her blood run cold. She hurried into the room as fast as she dared, asking, "What is going on here?" but though Salazar spared her a glance and the briefest hesitation, her presence did not deter him. He gathered his cloak and his wand and the books he had brought with him.

"I will send someone for the rest of my things, but while I and my students are so disrespected, I shall not stay here a moment longer."

"Then get out!" Godric roared. "For the school shall be a far better place without you and your cowardly, bigoted ways!"

Before Helga had time to register what was happening, Salazar's wand was out and a curse had been leveled at Godric that he barely managed to avoid. " _I AM NO BIGOT!_ " Salazar cried, frenzied and wild and pushed beyond the breaking point. The force of his reaction stopped even Godric in his tracks. "I am no bigot," he repeated in a voice that was quieter but no less furious, no less intense. "My concern is and always has been the safety of this school and its students. Muggles are a danger to us! The facts are incontrovertible! Giving their community any access to ours, however small, is a mistake! But enough, if you have not listened to me for the past three years, you will hardly listen now, and so I have done. It would serve you right, all of you, to cook in their fires when they come for this school - which they will, make no mistake - but luckily, the hatred I hold for you in no way extends to the students following in your misguided footsteps. When the Muggles come and your protections fail, _mine_ will still be in place to protect this school and those who study here!"

"Protections?" Rowena broke in. "What protections have you laid?"

"I'll not share them with the likes of you," he spat back at her. "But know this. If you banish my students alongside me, if you deny access to my kin and those who follow my ideals, you doom yourselves. All of you."

"Is that a threat, Slytherin?" Godric growled.

"A reality," Salazar shot back, and stalked for the door. While his back was turned, Godric raised his wand.

" _NO_!" Helga shouted, and her words were all that kept the curse from hitting Salazar while his back was turned. Further infuriated, Salazar's wand came out.

"And you call _me_ coward?" he roared, and then the room was bright with curses.

" _STOP IT!_ " Helga shrieked, stumbling forward closer to the fray, her voice going frantic and wild as her pulse thrummed in her ears and she called on the one ragged scrap of hope she had left - that somewhere still buried deep inside them existed the desire to protect her that they had all three once held.

It worked, but Helga knew that if she had given a cry like that five years ago, if she had looked this pale and haggard, they would have dropped everything, all of them, to come to her aid. Now, it was a success for the men to drop their wands, for Rowena to take a tentative step forward. Up until that moment, somewhere deep inside Helga had lived the hope that this might yet be fixed. But as she stood there, breath coming in gasps, clutching a chair for support, and not one of them came to her side or asked if she was all right . . . that hope died, shattering into thousands of tiny pieces, broken irreparably.

No more words were spoken. Salazar merely swept out. Helga locked eyes with Godric. His face was bleeding, his cheek cut open, and while Helga knew she should go to him, ignore the screaming of her heart, knew that that was what he expected her to do . . . she couldn't. She turned and followed Salazar.

She caught him at the end of the drive, pushed herself harder than she should have to reach him before he reached the post that would allow him to leave the castle, to leave her, for good. "Salazar, please," she called to him in a ragged voice, and it stilled him and a tiny spark of new hope was born inside her. "Please come back inside."

There was a long silence, then he spoke, back still to her, "I'll not stay where I am to be so abused. It is bad enough to fear attack every moment from the wider world, I will not accept fearing attack at Hogwarts as well. No, Helga, nothing you can say will change my mind."

"If you go, that is it. If you leave, the dream dies."

"Wake up, Helga!" he snapped, his voice harsh and hard. "The dream died long ago; you are the only one who hasn't seen it."

That woke fire inside her. "You think I have not?" she demanded, voice soft but pointed. "While the three of you have spent the last three years in petty arguments and selfish competitions, _I_ have been the one holding this school together by the skin of my teeth. Do not speak to me as if I am a naive child, Salazar! I am feeble of body, but not of mind or spirit, and you used to recognize that!"

Finally, he turned, but even then, he could only meet her eye for the briefest of moments. "I'll not stay," he said again, to the road, to the ground, to anything but her.

"You told me once you would never choose a life that did not have me in it. You told me another time that I would always be your only love."

A vein pulsed in his temple. "The man who made those promises was young and foolish."

"And cruel, I think."

And there. Those words brought his eyes to hers, startled, hurt. "Cruel because he gave me hope, hope that even after the worst happened, we might still be able to be friends. To have some of what we had before. I have never asked you to be disloyal to your wife. I would never ask you to dishonor your family. All I ask, all I want, is - my friend. If there is any love for me left in your heart . . . _do not leave_."

Tears ran down her face by the end of her plea. She fell silent, but prayed with all her heart and soul as he stood rigid before her. And after a moment too long to measure, he dropped his eyes from hers again and said, "I will not, I _cannot_ stay."

The words hit her like a blow. For a moment, her breath would not come, and when it finally did, in rushed into her with too much force, but how could she feel more damage than what had already been done.

"Then you are right," she said, and she did not recognize her voice. "The dream died long ago. It died with my husband. Go. Go be with your family."

"Helga . . ." In her name, she heard, just for a moment, the voice of the man she had once loved, and it hurt too much to bear.

" _Go_."

He went.

It was the last thing she remembered.

Accounts will say she returned to the school, that she confronted Godric and Rowena, that she flew into the rage she had held back for so many years. Accounts will say she held nothing back, that she forcefully reminded them both of the past that they had tried so hard to forget, that she accused them of losing sight of the dream in their own desires for power and to be right, that they had forgotten compassion and understanding in their attempts to protect and keep her from emotions. Accounts will say she railed at them with all the power of her broken heart, until her voice and breath and composure were all distant memories.

But all she remembered was being tired, being so tired of all of it - of being the calm one, of pretending not to feel, of keeping herself quiet and still and safe. And she was tired of trying to hold everything together, tired of not speaking her mind in the name of compromise, tired of being the only one who remembered what they had been, what they had had. She was tired of not letting go. And so she let go.

oOo

She was timeless, weightless, hovering in a small chamber, looking down at her body on the ground. It looked so small, so frail, so fragile. She felt such sadness, such sympathy. _You poor thing_ , she thought, and tried to stroke the pale cheek.

She hovered there for ages that felt like a moment, for a moment that felt like an age, and then, all of a sudden, the door burst open, a man and a woman rushing frantically in. "Helga!" the woman cried, falling to her knees beside the body on the floor, and yes. Helga. That was her name. And this woman, Rowena - _Ro_ , she thought, the nickname coming back to her like a sigh - was her friend. And the big bear of a man - _Godric_ \- was her friend, too. Or were they? She couldn't remember. She thought they were. The way they acted in this moment supported the idea.

She watched as Ro cried, "She is still alive!" and it made her frown. Still alive? She considered, considered her connection to the body on the ground and determined, yes, she was. If she tried, she could go back, she thought, back inside that body. But why would she want to? That body was so limited, so in pain, so _tired. And maybe_ , she thought, _this is the magic that can bring something back to life. Maybe something else has to take its place in death._

Godric, with surprising gentleness, lifted her body in his arms and laid it on the bed - _In twenty yards, he set her back on her feet so she could take the final steps to the crest of the mountain alongside them_ \- and Ro begged him to go to her workshop and find her journal from twelve years past - _"Why should great magic not be able to save you a fourth time? Why should great magic not be able to cure you of your affliction? I tell you, I will find the solution, Helga, and I shall someday make you well!"_ \- He went, and after the notebook was safely delivered, he sent an owl to the Slytherin home without a second thought, urging Salazar - _her husband_ \- to come to her side, to say his goodbyes before it was too late. - _"Owls, it turns out, are much smarter than pigeons!"_ -

It was making her head hurt, the constant barrage of memories. She held firm to the thought that seemed to anchor her here, in the moment, even if it didn't quite make sense without other, more painful memories she did not care to dwell upon. _This is the magic it takes. A life for a life. The dream can live again._

If only he had come in time.

But his wife had always known his love was taken up elsewhere, had always resented it, even as she resented him for not being Salvator as much as he resented her for not being Helga. And it was his wife who received the message. And she did not pass it on. Salazar Slytherin had no idea what had befallen Helga Hufflepuff until one of her students, the student who had found her first, had left the school and come to tell him.

If only he had come in time.

She watched him, the moment he realized he was too late. One look at Ro's swollen face, one glimpse of Godric's softly shaking shoulders, and he knew. Without a word, they let him into her chamber, lit by candles, where she lay upon the bed, dressed in white, looking at peace. He collapsed at the side of her bed, sobbing her name, her hand in both of his. He was only a scant handful of hours too late.

He poured out his heart to her. He swore that she was his only love, his dearest love, the only wife of his heart. He admitted to her in death what he had not be able to admit to her in life, that he was ashamed of his actions, ashamed of his weakness, ashamed of the way he had lost control of his life. Wracked with guilt and anguish, he apologized again and again - for not being stronger, for breaking her heart, for walking away. She ached with his heartache, consoling herself with that same thought - _This is the magic it takes_. Her death would bring them together. In grief, they would heal the rift. She wished it could have been done another way, but it was enough to know that it _would_ be done.

If only. If only grief had been stronger than pride. If only remorse and regret had overpowered guilt and shame. But not long after Salazar emerged from her chamber, instead of uniting in their loss, acknowledging the part they all had played in it, they pointed fingers, laying blame on each other, on her, anywhere but on themselves. The cracks reappeared, and she could not stand it. She could not.

She retreated, away from the school and the broken remnants of her dreams.

oOo

But there is a happy ending to be had. For time, and death, do heal all wounds.

She is timeless, and he is timeless, and in the white space he comes to after his death, she is there waiting for him.

"Helga."

"Salazar."

"Have you waited for me all this time?"

"You called me to you."

She smiles at him, and holds out her hand. He hesitates. "I am so sorry," he says to her. She nods.

"I know. I heard you, all those years ago."

"How can you not blame me?"

"Because you leave those things behind. Guilt, shame, regret, blame, you cannot take it with you where we go. Life happens, Salazar. We make mistakes and the world spins on."

He looks behind him. "We made so many mistakes," he says.

"Yes."

"Will they ever move beyond them? Will they ever overcome the chasms we left behind?"

"Yes. Someday. We were only human, Salazar, whatever history books may say about us in the future. We were only human, trying to do the best we could with the hand we were dealt."

"How can you not blame me?" he repeats.

"Because all is forgiven," she tells him. "And you have blamed yourself for far too much for far too long. But all is forgiven." She holds her hand out to him. "Come. There are others waiting for you."

"Then . . . they do not blame me either?" Hope enters his eyes, and with it, years disappear from him. She smiles.

"Not a bit," she assures him. "I am here alone so that we can have this moment, you and I."

"Why should this be so?" he asks in a whisper, and her smile brings the sun with it.

"Because I have loved you with all of my heart from the first moment I met you, and I have never stopped, my dearest one. Let go of what was, Salazar. Know only love."

She holds her hand out to him again, and this time, he does not hesitate. As he comes to her, the years and worries and regrets melt away, until, when his hand joins her, they are as they once were, eleven and thirteen, seventeen and nineteen, twenty and twenty-two, defined by love and warmth and openness. And that is their happy ending.

* * *

Please consider leaving a review.


End file.
